महावीरचरितम् (महाकवि भवभूति - वीररस-प्रधान रामकथा नाटक सम्पूर्ण ७ अङ्क सटीक)

A Method for citing Sanskrit Dramas [xviii
good method should be so good as to commend itself to general acceptance
by scholars and future editors, since uniformity is in itself highly
desirable.
For these reasons I earnestly hope that this system will be widely
accepted and followed by scholars of India and the Occident.
Importance of a good method of citation.—‘A simple and sufficient
means of citation is absolutely indispensable for any text of mingled verse
and prose that is of consequence enough to be studied and cited at all.
The editor who fails to provide such means is guilty of flagrant neglect of
plain duty and of gross disregard for the time and convenience of students
and of his colleagues. By way of punishment he may count upon the
seriously circumscribed usefulness of his book and the silent maledictions
of those who are forced to use it.’—This was my plea, in 1900, before the
court of intending editors, on behalf of a good method of citation, and
made in the preface of the translator of Konow’s Karpūra-mañjarī, Harvard
Oriental Series, vol. 4, p. xvi. The system tried by me in 1900 proved
unsatisfactory in one particular, the method of citing the prose-passages.
The one now proposed is substantially the same as that of 1900, excepting
the feature which concerns the prose-passages.
Two aspects of the method : its logical character and its typographical
**expression.—**A good method must be good in that it is logical and there-
fore easy to understand and to remember, and good also in that the
typographical devices for its expression are simple and are easily and
quickly caught by the eye. These general requirements are so obvious as
to need no argument. Nobody disputes them—chiefly (I fear) because
nobody stops to think of them. Hence the need of bringing them to the
attention of future editors.
The excellences of a good method appeal in part to the mind and in
part to the sense of sight, and the means for securing them will accordingly
be treated under two heads (which, however, cannot be wholly separated
in discussion), namely, The logically essential features of a good method,
and (p. xxiv) Typographical devices for making this method usable.
**Logically essential features of a good method.—**A good method should
utilize the native divisions of the text so far as these are natural or logical
or generally accepted.—To illustrate. For the English Bible we have the
generally accepted divisions into books and chapters and verses. These are
always accordant among the innumerable editions, while the pagination
(unless by some strange chance) is always discordant. To cite the English
Bible by pages, ignoring those divisions, would be futile folly. And it
is no less wrong in principle to ignore the natural divisions of a Sanskrit
play. Hence